Diablo 4’s Season of the Malignant adds new builds on July 20

Diablo 4’s first season, Season of the Malignant, is coming to the game on July 20 — just a month and a half after D4’s launch. Blizzard revealed the seasonal mechanics, along with the introduction of the new class. Diablo Immortal() on a long livestream Thursday.

Season of the Malignant is the season that follows the Diablo 4The campaign is a separate story set in Sanctuary’s world. The world has been ravaged by a corrupting plague after the players’ efforts to fight the forces of evil during the campaign. Cormund will be a brand new character that players can meet at the beginning of season one in the capital of the Fractured Peaks. Cormund asks players to take corrupted hearts to gain more power so that they can purge blight away from the country.

The result is a set of powerful tools that are available for every Diablo class. While playing the game normally in season 1, there’s a chance for players to come across a Malignant monster. They are tougher than normal monsters, and they drop the special Malignant Heart when they die. Interacting with this heart will respawn the enemy — making them even more difficult to deal with — and summon in a bunch of additional foes. If the players are still able to defeat the beast, it will drop a Caged Heart. You can then use this to dramatically increase your strength over the course the season.

Image: Blizzard Entertainment via YouTube

Caged Hearts come with their own Legendary-level powers — such as the one shown above, which causes critical hits to electrify enemies — and players can socket them into their jewelry items. For the entirety of Season of the Malignant, all rings and amulets will drop with a festering socket that’s either red, blue, or yellow. The different colors correspond to the power of each heart. Players can only match like-with-like, so they won’t be able to put a blue heart in a yellow socket. A fourth heart color is available, and players can use it in any one of the sockets.

Malignant Heart will have 32 brand new power exclusives to Season of Malignant. Tim Ismay — the lead producer for seasons in Diablo 4 — said on the livestream that these new powers are “stupid broken,” and will enable a lot of new and interesting builds during season 1.

The currency can be used to craft a Malignant Heart if the player is looking for one in particular. Once they’ve gathered enough, they can take the currency into a Malignant Tunnel — a new activity space packed with Malignant monsters — and spawn a special enemy at the end that’s guaranteed to drop a Malignant Heart of their chosen color.

Season of the Malignant also includes some brand new content that is not related to the plot of the game. Diablo 4It also includes a boss monster with new Legendary Powers as well as new unique items.

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

New powers and items are also coming to the Eternal world, where non-seasonal character live. Diablo 4. To play the Season of the Malignant content or to increase the level of their Season Pass, the players must create a brand new character on the 20th of July.

Blizzard has reiterated, however, that seasonal purchases will be cosmetic only, and players won’t ever be able buy real world cash to purchase in-game powers. Diablo 4 — a major departure from Diablo Immortal.

The developers discussed in the last livestream the Season Journey mechanic and the Seasonal Blessing, among other things. It was also revealed by the studio that there are no restrictions on how many players can play. Diablo 4Seasons will run for at least 12 weeks, with the largest patch being Season of the Malignant. Diablo 4Just patch it.

Ismay, the associate director of game development and Joe Piepiora have promised to deliver patches more regularly during Diablo 4’s seasons. The studio acted quickly in order to balance out overpowered builds, items, and other features during the initial days of Diablo 4’s launch, frustrating some players. Blizzard has said that it will keep buffs and nerfs at a minimum, except in the case of major emergency or issues which could break games.

Players have just two weeks to prepare for the new season, and between finishing the campaign and finding all the Altars of Lilith, there’s a lot to do.